Problems with Time Travel
by Saienai
Summary: To some, time travel is a way of solving all their problems – of wiping the slate clean. Note though, that this does not happen in ALL cases – even if you discount the dreaded time loop scenarios, FUBAR and SNAFU situations are only to be expected when you decide to mess with time. Too bad Naruto didn't listen beyond 'you can save them' when Kyuubi explained it all to him.
1. Prologue - Burning World

_Humans have always thirsted for power – the discovery of chakra, the escalating clan battles during the chaos era, the establishment of the hidden villages and the ever-growing collection of forbidden techniques… skills that encroached upon the territory of gods themselves. Funny really – how many of them did not even understand the simplest principles and possible consequences before flipping through the hand signs or drawing the seals…_

_._

**Prologue ~ Burning World**

_._

The nigh invisible tracks continued relentlessly westwards, and the Uchiha followed. It was the fourth day since the blood red moon dawned upon the world; three days since he started tracking the last being not ensnared within the eternal genjutsu.

Mindlessly, his feet took him across the dead landscape, neither hurrying nor hesitating as they silently treaded onwards. The dry husks of once green trees seemed to curve around him, as if even in death they did not want to come close to one such as him.

Almost without thought the slowly spinning shuriken marked eyes marked out the next step – lighting up a single crunched leaf amidst countless others and adjusting his course to compensate. Another few angles north, and another few miles closer to what was once the land of waves.

There was no point in hurrying – he quite literally had all the time in the world.

.

The ruins of a once great village appeared over the horizon – one of the few places that were not destroyed by his hand, having been pillaged way back during the second great war. Uzushiogakure it was called, if he remembered correctly. Considering just how much trouble the people with the same last name caused him over the years, it really irked him that he did not take part in its collapse.

… unlike Konoha.

As always, that brought a smile to his face – a lopsided grin that never reached his eyes and would have sent shivers up the spines of anyone who caught sight of it.

.

The most recent tracks were fresh – even without hurrying he had slowly shrunk the distance between him and his prey. Being a god did have its up sides after all – not having to eat or sleep being only a minor part among them.

Walking through the remnants of the great gateway that had once repelled countless attacks before finally succumbing to the combined might of three villages, he couldn't help but wonder just what his prey was hoping to find here. Not that it mattered – in his mind there was nothing left in this world that could possibly threaten the ideal world he had created.

Even so, he picked up his pace. He couldn't explain it, but his instincts screamed at him to hurry, and he had long since stopped doubting them.

.

Naruto grunted as he stood up, his legs protesting at their sudden movement. In front of him the chakra laced blood seeped into the last of the necessary runes, causing them to give off an eerie glow. It had taken him three days, but it was finally done.

_Hey kit, are you sure about this? You know what would happen if this fails right?_

"It's not like we have much choice; besides – this was your idea in the first place. If we succeed, we can fix everything. If we fail, at least the damn bastard wouldn't be able to use you to become immortal. Win win in any case – you aren't having second thoughts are you?"

The demon fox stirred uneasily in its cage. _So what if I am? I've only done this once before, and the technique was horrifyingly complex with just myself – what with our souls tied together by your father, I quite honestly have no idea what will happen when you trigger it. You could easily burn out this reality and several others close by with the amount of power you need to feed the seal to even have a remote chance of succeeding._

Picking up the green stone necklace that he had drawn the focusing runes upon, Naruto sat down cross legged in the center of the seal array and closing his eyes began feeding the kyuubi's chakra into it.

_… you aren't even listening to me, are you?_

.

It was only years of experience that prevented the Uchiha from stumbling when he felt waves of demonic chakra pulsing outwards from the center of the ruined village. Kyuubi's chakra – he could recognize his pet's taint anywhere.

This was not good.

The shuriken like markings of his eyes twisting space around him, the Uchiha disappeared from between the gates.

.

_You better be finished kit, the bastard found us._

Opening his eyes, Naruto glanced sideways, watching with a vicious smile as a half-opened rip in space was surrounded by numerous kanji, seemingly floating in the air. It was the last gift Hinata had given him before the curse-eyed bastard with a god complex ripped her heart out for her 'transgressions'. It would only hold for a minute before failing, but that was more than enough.

Throwing the last of his strength into forming the three hundred and forty required hand seals, Naruto felt nine tails worth of demonic power flow out of the now red stone, lighting up the world around him as lightning flashed amidst the runes. Not that he saw any of it, his entire being focused instead on keeping himself conscious as liquid fire almost literally flowed through his chakra coils.

There was a price to pay for using yourself as a conductor for demon chakra after all.

.

The Uchiha unleashed a stream of curses that would have caused even Hidan to blush as he felt the exit of his space-time technique blocked off. Even in death the bitch managed to defy him! Calling forth the entirety of juubi's power, he willed it to rip apart space. Within a few seconds the tear was big enough to see through, and noticing the glowing seal on the other side that even his eyes were having difficulty deciphering, the Uchiha doubled his efforts.

There was no doubt that whatever the Uzumaki was trying to accomplish on the other side was exactly what his instincts were screaming out against.

He had to stop it now!

.

The fiery pain cut off so suddenly, that its loss brought him closer to unconsciousness than the endless seconds he had suffered through it. Taking a ragged breath through his abused throat, he felt more than saw the red jewel disintegrate into dust, its last purpose finished.

The glowing runes, flickering in and out of sight in such a way as to give a migraine to anyone trying to keep track of them, seemed to bend in on themselves, stretching reality in ways it should never be.

_Well kit, brace yourself. I have no idea what is about to happen, but if it is anything close to what happened the last time I did this, the pain you went through just now will seem like a gentle caress compared to what comes next. _The kyuubi's voice had lost its dark undertones, and had Naruto spared a glance at the seal within his mind he would have noticed that it was now no larger than a regular fox, with just as many tails.

"You bastard Uzumaki! Don't you -"

He only had a moment to smirk at the Uchiha before the runes pulsed one last time, and the abused reality seemed to shatter before his eyes, the break centered upon him and continuing outwards like an unstoppable wave. Even if the seal failed and his entire existence was erased, seeing the horrified look upon the bastard's face would have been worth it. Besides, without the kyuubi and the immortality that a completely awakened juubi offered, his so called 'perfect world' would only last until his death – so whoever was still alive by then would be free in at most ten years' time.

…that's if the bastard managed to survive the world shattering around him.

.

One thing Naruto prided himself on, was his pain tolerance. Seriously – considering that he had once spend a week gritting his teeth as his demon boosted healing warred against the black fires of amaterasu and had managed to come out with his sanity mostly intact, he could honestly say that none in the world had experienced pain worse than he had.

A lesser man would have broken within less than a second of being flung into the endless chaos between worlds. Naruto of course was much stronger than that.

He lasted for five.

The fox, having experienced this once before, lasted for three more before its screams joined his captor's.

.

**A/N**

**Only time I an saying this: **I do not own... quite a staggering list of things actually. I will get back to you once I figure out if Naruto is included there as soon as I find the index tome.

This is going to be a different time-travel story as compared to others, as each chapter will in essence be a stand alone story, each one reading as a possible continuation from the prologue.

R&R people!

Saienai signing off.


	2. World 1 - Brothers

_We were friends once – before all of __**this**__ happened. Which of us in our youth could have dreamed that your paths would separate so abruptly and with such finality; that they would cross countless times later on, just with the words friend and family replaced by bastard and enemy._

_Just so you know, I forgave you for everything – for betraying Konoha, for killing countless people… for taking __**her**__ away from me… It wasn't your fault that the cursed seal shattered your mind…_

_Even so, there is one thing I just can't forgive – you cut our broken team down from four to two… She loved you, you bastard!_

_…_

_You're already dead aren't you? Never could let me finish… _

.

**World I ~ Brothers**

.

_"- alive there kit?_

Naruto groaned as the thought needled its way through his head, sending waves of pain from every overstrained nerve it had to travel through.

_"Well that's good to know. Now the second question – are you still sane?"_

… If glares could kill (and he could muster up the energy needed to do so), the annoying voice in his head would be little more than dust in the wind. As it was, Naruto didn't even bother trying to open his eyes and instead attempted to will himself into unconsciousness.

Sleep was number one on his list of priorities – along with numbers two through nine inclusive; and not even a spontaneous appearance of Madara was going to stop him from getting it.

Perhaps the voice in his head decided it has had enough, or his body chose that moment to let go of its tedious grasp on reality, but the darkness closed in on him again and he knew no more.

Kurama just twitched his tails in annoyance and lay back down to rest, watching as his partner slept without a care in the world in the middle of their combined mindscape… on the wrong side of the bars separating them.

He understood the pain his partner / jailer was probably going through after having his body destroyed and his mind dragged through the chaos between worlds only to be thrust into another body – if only in the same abstract way of one glancing at a bird with a broken wing and thinking how sad it was that it couldn't fly. Being made of pure chakra certainly had its perks.

For a moment Kurama toyed with the idea of spearing his jailer through with one of his tails and relishing in the freedom that would provide, before discarding it. There wasn't any point to it – no matter how much it galled him, he knew that he would just be easy pickings for Madara…

Besides, a couple decades worth of living with Naruto had… grown on him.

…

Sometimes he wondered if the only reason that Madara was still after them was that the bastard's confrontations with Naruto had never lasted longer than ten minutes – anyone else who had passed that point had inadvertently joined Naruto's side.

.

The next morning dawned on a much less homicidal Naruto – over sixteen hours of sleep combined with his super-bordering-on-regeneration healing had done their job, and it was time for him to do his.

Contrary to what he expected, there was no moment of disorientation followed by slow realization that his and Kurama's desperate sealing array had done what it had been designed to do and thrown their combined souls back into the past. In fact it was the exact opposite. Even before he opened his eyes he knew that he had succeeded, mostly from the way his body did not feel quite like his own – years of training had made him an expert on every single bundle of muscles in his body, and this was most definitely **not** it.

Besides, the… experience (for the lack of a better term) of traveling across worlds was all too fresh in his mind.

Ok, enough about that, he thought firmly to himself and pushed all the recent memories off into the specific corner of his mind that all veteran shinobi had, wedging it firmly between his memories of Orochimaru's labs that he had raided during his career, and Sakura's death at The Bastard's lightning covered hand.

His eyes narrowed into slits as that particular memory lashed out at him... Sure Sasuke was still innocent at the moment – at least if the time focusing runes weren't off – still…

Naruto shook his head and climbed out of bed. There really wasn't any point in agonizing about it any longer – every other plan that he had made was thought out to exhaustion: Madara would die (but not quickly – the bastard didn't deserve that);Nagato would either join him or his current master – he did revive the villagers that he massacred before, so he deserved a chance; Danzo, the Akatsuki, Orochimaru (oh yes – Naruto was going to have fun with that particular one)…

And then there was Sasuke – **the** betrayer of konoha (taking the title away from Orochimaru and managing to even beat Madara for top place), the snake of team 7, the avenger, and last but not least – Naruto's brother in all but blood.

Stumbling his way to the washroom, his instincts working against him as they overextended his legs and overcompensated every time he lost his balance, Naruto decided to just wait and see. Even though life had taught him the value of planning things out, he was still a spur-of-the-moment kind of guy.

He would go to the academy, look at Sasuke… and then he would know what to do.

.

. . .

.

Sasuke's eyes opened and stared unblinkingly at the ceiling of his room in the Uchiha compound. Slowly shifting to the side he brought out his hand and held it loosely above him, staring at it. Small. It was small – a child's hand, weak and hardly nimble enough to go through seals. It wasn't a civilian's hand though – scars crossed it here and there, a harsh reminder of training that he had forced himself to do.

… It wasn't his hand – uncountable amount of scars were missing from it, the calluses of constant training only beginning to form, and even the unique branchlike marks spreading outwards from his palm were gone. Unfortunate really, he was slightly fond of those. He was the last one in the world who had them – marks of intensive training in pure lightning manipulation. No, not the only one – at least not anymore.

A grin spread across his face as he chuckled before breaking out in full laughter. His hand dropped down over his face, even as tears streamed down his eyes.

No, he wasn't the only one left alive with those markings across his palms – Kakashi was still alive (and would be for years and years to come, he promised himself), and Naruto-

Sasuke's laughter cut off so abruptly one might have wondered if it was there in the first place. Naruto – it always came back to Naruto…

_Kill him – that's what you need to do – for all the pain he caused us_

"Shut up"

_You know that you want to – wasn't that the reason you came back? To take revenge just one more time? To pay him back for taking her away from us – for betraying everything the four of you-_

"Shut up!"

The ceiling caught fire, the black flames spreading at an almost alarming rate before they vanished, leaving behind only charred wood and ashes floating down.

Trying to calm his pounding heart down, Sasuke got up and pulled on a shirt. Even after ten years the broken seal still tried to exert its influence over him – his hope that being thrown back through time would get rid of it for good turning out to be little more than ashes to the wind. Still, even with a homicidal voice in his head he had come out of the encounter with Orochimaru with surprisingly little mental damage.

Heck, his mind was a picture of perfection in comparison to Naruto.

Then again, so was Madara.

With a weary sigh that should have never come out of a child's mouth, Sasuke closed the door and left for the academy. This time, he would stop Orochimaru from placing a seal on his brother, even if he had to knock out the misguided fool before the snake bastard found them.

And if he failed?

Sasuke's eyes flashed red for a moment, the spiral like design within them going unnoticed by all the civilians passing by him. Before Jiraya left for his final mission to try and put down the beast that his apprentice had become, the last Sannin explained just what happened to Naruto – as Orochimaru found out in his last minutes of life, the cursed seal and the kyuubi's cage were never meant to mix.

Once the seal touched him, it was over. It may have taken over a year for Naruto's mind to shatter, but the end result was as irreversible at the end as it was when Orochimaru attempted to withdraw his head after placing the seal.

If he failed to stop Orochimaru, there was but one thing to do – even if it broke his heart, he would slit the throat of his brother to stop the beast from taking over and virtually collapsing the world.

Heck, it wasn't as if he hadn't done it once before.

.

**A/N**

Well, there you go. The next chapter will end this story, and I already have several other ideas to run with. Hope you guys like it so far!

If it wasnt obvious, yes - both Naruto and Sasuke returned back, and they both came from different worlds. Naruto's is similar to what happened in canon, while Sasuke came from a world where Naruto got marked by Orochimaru at the same time as he did (for disastrous consequences; more on that later)


	3. World 1 - Brothers, part 2

**World I ~ Brothers, part 2**

.

Discounting the problems that he _still_ had with walking properly, Naruto was having a wonderful time. It only took a single step outside of his rundown apartment for him to break out into the biggest smile he had expressed for years. Oh it wasn't perfect – the glares were back, along with the mutterings and hidden curses. Still, they only made his smile brighter.

That they were able to curse and glare at him meant that they were all alive – miraculously alive. That alone made his decision worth it, no matter the pains he experienced along the way.

He was so happy in fact that he skipped his way right on past the ninja academy and straight to the hokage tower, banking on it taking Iruka or one of the other teachers hours to realize that he wasn't skipping for a prank before they figured out where to search for him. Waltzing his way past the ANBU guards that have long since gotten used to the blond menace coming and going through some of the most heavily guarded chambers in the village as if he owned the place, Naruto slammed open the door to the Hokage's office.

"Morning Jiji!" he yelled out, and watched as the still-alive-and-kicking sandaime jerked in surprise, the orange book disappearing in a blur to his now untrained eyes.

"Ah – good morning Naruto, shouldn't you be in class right now?"

"Oh come on jiji, its boring! Iruka-sensei just keeps going on and on about history and theory and what not, and with him throwing chalk at me all the time I cant even plan out my next prank in peace."

Sarutobi just chucked at that, and Naruto felt another part of his broken heart slowly mend back together, his already bright smile just starting to appear within his eyes.

"Do you really think Iruka would teach you things that you would not need? Everything that you learn in the academy is…" he trailed off, having noticed that Naruto had stopped listening at around the third word or so.

"Alright – how about you go back to class before Iruka comes looking for you, and I can take you out to ramen in the afternoon?"

Naruto jumped up, instantly awake. "You got yourself a deal jiji!"

A single blink, and Naruto was gone – if he didn't know better Sarutobi would have thought the young trouble maker had learned shunshin from one of the countless games of chase-the-damn-brat that the ANBU tended to play.

Chuckling lightly at the child of his successor and wondering if hiraishin was actually a bloodline instead of a seal based technique that everyone thought it was, Sarutobi glanced around the office to make sure that he was alone before cautiously taking out his reading material. Contrary to common belief, there wasn't much a hokage had to do during peace time. Quite opposite actually. Ever since the fourth restructured the way all the paperwork was handled, the only thing left for the hokage to do was read over the summarized reports and trust his men to do their jobs.

For just that alone he had done everything he could to make Naruto's life better than that of his fellow jinchuriki – well, everything except kill anyone who looked at him crosswise, and had he done that there wouldn't be much left of the village.

Pausing for a moment in his thoughts, Sarutobi put his book away again and called for the head of the ANBU to meet with him – there was something off about Naruto's smile today, it just didn't seem to quite reach his eyes.

Perhaps it was time to get another pair of his best ANBU to discretely follow the kid and make sure no one had let their hate get the better of them.

.

. . .

.

_"Was that really necessary kit?"_

Naruto sighed, the bright smile he had worn moments ago dripping off his face to be replaced by just a slight curving at the ends of his mouth. He hadn't had much practice in wearing masks these past few – for him at least – years. Still, some things you just don't forget.

"I am not going to dignify that with a response. You know just as well as I do that Jiji is hokage first and foremost, with doting grandfather a distant second. If I act in a way that would not get on your nerves, we would be seeing the personal hospitality of the TI department first hand."

There was silence in his head, and then Kurama grumbled out; _"Doesn't mean I have to like it…"_

"Just because I do it doesn't mean I like it any more than you. Now close your eyes or something if you don't want to see my mask again – we are almost at the academy."

.

. . .

.

Iruka was pleasantly surprised to see the resident troublemaker appear in class after he called an end to lunch. He had already been checking his pockets for extra strength pills that he might need to catch up to Naruto after whatever stunt the kid decided to pull this time when he noticed the bright orange jacket that only one person in Konoha wore.

Deciding to not bring attention to Naruto's late arrival, Iruka opened up the class notes and continued the lecture about the Nidaime's accomplishments during the first great ninja war. Had his gaze stayed on the blond prankster for but a moment longer, he would have noticed tears dripping from his eyes before being quickly wiped away.

.

. . .

.

"Sasuke-kun! Where are you!"

Sasuke cursed as he stuck to the roof of the building just outside the academy and watched the veritable stampede of fangirls stream out after him – or more correctly put, his bunshin. The chance to redo everything was amazing – Kakashi was alive (along with just about everyone else), and Naruto was still… sane.

This was worth it; he repeated to himself. He had to endure. A moment later he felt his chakra construct disperse as the fangirls tried to glomp it.

"Sasuke, where did you go!"

"There he is! Hieee! Just look at what he is doing! So cool!" He didn't even need to look – he could tell it was Sakura just from her voice, even though he hadn't heard it outside his nightmares for over three years now.

Turning around and rushing away, Sasuke felt… glad – not happy, Uchiha simply did not do 'happy' – yes, glad that he had decided to risk it all on coming back.

There was a feeling between his shoulder blades that warned him that someone was watching him, but he disregarded it. What with the wolves after him, he doubted that it could be anything important. Not at this point in time at least. For now all he had to do was dodge his fangirls while not showing off any abilities above genin and acting out the role of the gloomy child he remembered from his first life. He didn't have to like it, but having been an ANBU commander at one point before Konoha went up in flames he knew better than most just what would happen to anyone who had a drastic personality transplant in a village full of shinobi.

His fame as the 'last Uchiha' wouldn't help him one bit – if anything it would guarantee a cell a few floors deeper.

Still, if he gradually dropped the act after befriending Naruto – or as was likely to happen have the kid interpret a nice gesture as a sign of eternal friendship – no one would bat an eyelash. There was something about the kid that made even the most unrepentant killers turn a new leaf or more often than not chuck out the old book and start a new one entirely.

"Sasuke-kun!"

Right… Now if only Sakura and Ino and all the rest of them got out of the fangirl stage and actually started training to become the kunoichi he knew they could be, his life would be perfect.

.

. . .

.

Naruto leaned back against the chimney he had been hiding behind. For a moment there he thought the Uchiha had noticed him, but that was just silly – no matter how powerful of a shinobi the bastard became in the future, at this moment in time he was nothing but a kid.

_"Are you really going to do it?" _Kurama's voice echoed in his head, and Naruto snarled back.

"Of course I am! Considering what he had done to you I am surprised you aren't howling out for me to end him!"

_"… you do realize that he hasn't done anything yet, right? Besides – "_

"So you are saying that if we went back before Konoha was formed and found a teenage Madara walking around you would just let him go?"

_"Don't you-" _Kurama's voice blazed with fury, but Naruto just cut him off before he could get into one of the rants against that bastard.

"Exactly! So don't try and be all understanding and forgiving now!"

True to his words, Naruto waited until he got his first look at the Uchiha before making a decision. He had expected it to be difficult – feelings of trust and betrayal, of brotherhood and loss warring against each other within his heart.

It wasn't.

The same old brooding look and uncaring attitude, the same disregard to anything non-Uchiha… He didn't even have to squint to see the old Sasuke in this younger one. Really – all that was needed was for him to grow a couple of inches (well, maybe a foot or so, but who is counting), strap a sword to his belt, and perhaps commit to a few minor clothing changes. Perhaps a couple innocent kills under his belt would also be helpful, but he wasn't going to let the bastard get those – not this time at least.

Still, all of that could have been disregarded if it wasn't for the eyes. Naruto knew eyes like that – he himself had them, no matter how hard he hid them.

The eyes of a killer.

_"Hey Kyu, I know you said that no one but you can use the technique, but are you quite sure that no one else could have followed us?" _He thought to his partner.

_"Of course I am sure! Did you completely forget what I told you? Even among the biju I was the only one that had the strength to do this technique. You would need –"_

_"All right, all right. No need to get all technical and righteous on me. Its just that-"_

_"It's his eyes isn't it?"_

Naruto chuckled, though there was little humour in it. The two of them knew each other more intimately than most lovers – a side effect of having their souls joined that he still could not classify as a blessing or a curse. Of course the fox would know just what it was that was troubling him.

Looking around to make sure that there were no shinobi hidden around who could spot him, Naruto sighed and opened his mouth to reply. It always felt better to voice his thoughts out loud instead of thinking them – it was difficult to differentiate whose exact thought it was if they were both conversing with their minds.

"Of course it's his eyes – I mean didn't you see them?"

He felt a thought coming from his partner and cut it off before it could even be heard (listened? Sometimes he found the human language so constricting). "That was rhetorical. Anyway – either he somehow managed to tag along with us, or… he had always been a killer, even before this life of ours turned us into one; the cursed seal just helped push it to the surface."

_"… Kit, you remember that Sasuke had been dead for over a year in the original timeline, don't you?"_

Naruto just sighed, and the last remnants of glimmer in his eyes that had taken root there when he had seen Konoha standing safe and strong again disappeared.

"I know kyu… I know"

.

.

**A/N**

Well, thats almost it for this world, only one more chapter to go. I might write longer worlds in, but for now there are several ideas I want to get off my mind so the worlds will be quite short. I am actually of two minds of whether or not to have Naruto (or Kurama) remember each world they pass through and thus connect the stories into one, or leave it as my original idea of each one being completely stand alone.

Leave a comment about what you think.

-Sai


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